The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from what is now the southeastern United States, particularly Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. For thousands of years before European contact, the Choctaw built prosperous communities, growing corn, beans, and squash, and developing a rich culture with its own language, traditions, and systems of government.

The Choctaw were one of the “Five Civilized Tribes,” a term used in the 1800s because they adopted many aspects of European-American culture while maintaining their own identity. They had their own schools and newspapers. Despite this, in the 1830s, the U.S. government forced most Choctaw to leave their ancestral homeland and walk to Oklahoma in what became known as the Trail of Tears, a brutal journey in which thousands died.

Today, the Choctaw Nation is one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States, with headquarters in Oklahoma. Many Choctaw also remained in Mississippi, where they formed the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. The Choctaw language is still spoken and taught, and the tribe maintains its cultural traditions while also operating businesses, schools, and health services.

During World War I, Choctaw soldiers used their native language as a code to transmit military messages, helping the Allied forces. This was years before the famous Navajo Code Talkers of World War II did the same thing.